THE AKIL CYCLE
Peter Rees, author of The Akil Cycle
The author

PETER
REES

Peter Rees writes epic fantasy about power, architecture, and what people owe the worlds they build. He lives in the American West and has been working on The Akil Cycle since 2019.

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THE
WRITER

Peter Rees grew up reading fantasy and came to writing it the long way — through years of thinking about what the genre could do that it wasn't doing, and what it would take to do it.

The Akil Cycle started with a single image: a man standing at the edge of a floating city, looking down at the clouds, knowing the god who built it was gone and that he was somehow responsible for what came next. Everything else — the world, the characters, the five-book structure — grew out of that image and the question it asked.

Peter is interested in the weight of power: what it costs to build something, what it costs to keep it, and what happens when the person who was supposed to hold it all together has to decide whether the thing they built is worth saving. He thinks fantasy is uniquely equipped to ask those questions at scale, and The Akil Cycle is his attempt to do that.

He lives in the American West with his family. He is currently writing Book Two.

WHAT BUILT THIS

influences

"I WANTED TO WRITE FANTASY THAT TOOK THE WEIGHT OF POWER SERIOUSLY."

The books that shaped The Akil Cycle are the ones that understood that magic and myth are most interesting when they have real consequences — when the world pushes back, when choices cost something, when the architecture of the story reflects the architecture of the world.

Brandon SandersonSystems of magic with real cost
Joe AbercrombieCharacters who earn their damage
N.K. JemisinWorld-building as argument
Steven EriksonScale and consequence
Ursula K. Le GuinThe ethics underneath everything

THE ROAD

how we got here
2019First draft of what would become The Golden Sword
2021The world of Aleria takes its final shape — Sky City, the Underling, the divine architecture
2023The Akil Cycle is named. Five-book structure locked.
2025The Golden Sword published
NowBook Two in progress

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TOUCH

For reader mail, media inquiries, or anything else — use the form. Peter reads everything, though response times vary.

Reader mailAlways welcome
Media & pressInterviews, features, reviews
Rights & licensingTranslation, adaptation
The story starts here

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GOLDEN SWORD